London – Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who was detained for 21 months in China and tried behind closed doors in the absence of diplomatic officials from his country, is unhealthy due to his raw white rice diet and has not received a consulate visit for several months.
The revelation was made by Lei’s boyfriend, Nick Coyle, who was the first to speak out about the case in an interview with Australian Sky News.
Cheng Lei, 46, trapped in china He has been accused of “illegally supplying government records abroad” since August 2020. He was a presenter for the state broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN), and his arrest sparked an international backlash.
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Trial of journalist arrested behind closed doors in China
In March, he attended a closed-door trial at the Beijing courthouse without foreign journalists and diplomats. Including Australia’s ambassador, Graham Fletcher.
The expectation was that his sentence would finally be given, but the verdict was postponed to a later date, which has not yet been announced.
The arrest came at a time of diplomatic tensions between Australia and China. Analysts think it may have been caught in retaliation for trade barriers imposed on Beijing.
Nick Coyle said the return of the Covid-19 restrictions in China was the reason for the suspension of the monthly consular visits and video calls to which Lei was entitled.
Since his arrest, the journalist has not spoken to his two young children, who are no longer in China and have rare contact with his family.
“I find this unacceptable,” said Nick Coyle of the treatment the journalist imprisoned in China has received from authorities in recent months.
In an interview with Sky News Australia, she reported that her monthly consular visits have “kept Lei well and in touch since she was arrested”.
“He wasn’t able to make a phone call to anyone, maybe three visits from his lawyer to prepare for the hearing, and didn’t make a single phone call to his family or kids.”
Coyle has expressed significant concern about “various health issues” that have worsened since his girlfriend’s arrest and are exacerbated by his raw white rice diet.
“Fortunately, we’re dealing with the strongest person I know mentally and emotionally, but there have been some really tough health issues along the way,” he said.
“During one of his consular visits, he joked with me in a message that my Starbucks coffee was more expensive than his week’s worth of food.”
Chinese authorities justify inmates not getting enough nutrition for “food restrictions in Beijing” due to the pandemic.
Corey, who has lived in China for many years, does not believe these claims. “There were no dietary restrictions in Beijing, I talk to the people there literally every day,” he said.
“The idea that he is not getting enough food to the detention center is absolutely unacceptable.”
Her boyfriend remembers when he found out the journalist had been arrested in China
Nick Coyle told Sky News Australia the moment he learned that Cheng Lei had disappeared from his apartment in China.
She texted him regularly on August 13, 2020, but did not receive a response until the next day when they were supposed to meet.
“I found that unusual. But I thought it was in the television business, I know people are busy, there are deadlines and a lot of distractions, so I didn’t think too much.”
Lei’s concerned friends called Coyle late into the evening around 7:00 pm to say they had not seen him in 24 hours.
“I tried to call him, the phone was switched off. I decided not to panic yet and tried calling him again that night, nothing.”
The next morning, he decided to break into her apartment with a friend of the journalist, who was later detained by the authorities.
“We went into the apartment and everything looked normal, until we saw all the electronics, computers, that sort of thing. [tinham desaparecido]. So it was pretty clear to me what happened.”
Coyle reminded me that this all sounds very strange, but at least it makes sense.
“There’s an ‘oh, fuck’ moment about what that means, but then the practical side comes into play, right, what do we do?” said Lei’s boyfriend.
He eventually called a friend who worked at the Australian embassy to seek advice, and was instructed to file a report on Cheng Lei’s disappearance for the Chinese police.
But he knew it would be useless to report his girlfriend’s disappearance, and he decided to wait for the embassy’s notification, which would notify him within three working days of an Australian’s arrest.
Later, Coyle discovered that Lei had been arrested by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, which is responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, and political security.
“That’s when I thought ‘this is not good’; “I knew it well enough to know that the system was difficult,” he said.
Coyle and Cheng Lei’s family are still unclear as to the reasons for the journalist’s arrest, as allegations that he “illegally provided government records abroad” have not been clarified.
“He’s not involved in politics, it wasn’t his world. “I was probably more interested in Chinese politics than he was,” he said.
According to her boyfriend, Lei was a business reporter for the Chinese broadcaster and would have little or no responsibility for covering political issues.
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Coyle said Cheng Lei’s two children are in Melbourne and have not seen their mother since his arrest, but they are “doing their best”.
“Kids are resilient so I’m sure they’ll get over it with time, but that’s all the more reason for him to come back. It’s not about me, it’s about him and his kids.”
Who is Cheng Li?
Cheng Lei was born in Yueyang, Hunan Province in 1975 and immigrated to Australia with his family at the age of ten.
They have two children, aged ten and twelve. Both returned to Australia at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and are now cared for by Cheng’s family in Melbourne.
A member of Cheng’s family in Australia told the media that Cheng believes China has not deliberately done anything to harm state security.
Still, the conditions in which he was held are harsh according to reports.
The Australian government said the journalist was initially placed under house arrest. A bilateral agreement allowed representatives of the Australian government to see him once a month. The journalist would remain blindfolded and handcuffed at these meetings.
But Australian broadcaster ABC reported in February last year that Cheng was confined to a cell without fresh air or natural light, was repeatedly interrogated, and forfeited the right to write letters and exercise.
After international appeals to the government over concerns about his safety and well-being, a Chinese government spokesman announced in September 2021 that journalist Cheng was being held in an undisclosed location for national security reasons.
Australian journalists association MEAA, which has campaigned for the release of Cheng, who has been a member of the organization since 2009, said “his arrest, detention and charges against him were never disclosed”.
The International Federation of Journalists said in March:
“Cheng Lei has been detained for 19 months and the authorities have so far not disclosed any details of the allegations against him.
The IJF expresses its concern at the lack of transparency in the case and demands that the Chinese government withdraw the arbitrary charge against Cheng and immediately release Cheng so he can return to Australia.”
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source: Noticias
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